


The Queen and the Soldier

by fardareismai



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Royalty AU, based on Suzanne Vega song, but it has a happy...ish ending, rather angsty all the way up until the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2019-01-21 16:31:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12461598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fardareismai/pseuds/fardareismai
Summary: And he said, "I want to live as an honest manTo get all I deserve and to give all I canAnd to love a young woman who I don't understandYour highness, your ways are very strange."A Nine x Rose Royalty AU based on the song The Queen & The Soldier by Suzanne Vega





	The Queen and the Soldier

* * *

_The soldier came knocking upon the queen’s door_

_He said “I am not fighting for you anymore”_

“General Tyler, your Majesty,” her footman said, then stepped aside to allow him into the throne room.

He was an impressive figure, tall and straight with his knife-edged nose and his diamond-hard blue eyes.  He moved like a man who knew his place in the world and never once questioned it.  Even in the presence of royalty, his broad shoulders were back and his spine was straight.

He reached the bottom step of the dais on which her throne sat and dropped to a knee, lowering his head and his eyes.

“My Queen,” he said, solemnly.

She blinked.  He had been her consort and lover for more than a year, and was the only person in her kingdom not expected to kneel in her presence.  He had not done so in all that time, and yet here he was, bowing to her as though he were a stranger.

Or as though she were.

“My Lord Tyler,” she said, hesitantly.  “What-”

“I am leaving your service, your majesty,” he said quickly, anticipating her question as he had anticipated her all the time she had known him.  “I am resigning my commission in your army, and my place in your household, effective immediately.”

For nineteen years, Queen Rose of Gallifrey had been trained to respond to every situation with equanimity and grace, and to never lose her temper or her poise.

“You what?” She cried, jumping from her throne in shock and horror, the heavy gold circlet she wore nearly sliding from her golden curls as she stumbled toward her general.

He looked up at her, freezing her with his gaze, but moving not a hair otherwise.

“Two years ago, your Highness, the Daleks of Skaro began their invasion into Gallifrey, and I was made your military advisor.  Since that time I have advised you, stood at your side, and made your orders manifest on the fields of war.  Since that time, you have not taken one word I have said to heart.  I cannot continue in your service, my Queen, if you will insist on playing at war and wasting men and resources in your games.”

Her spine transmuted to steel in an instant.  “Waste?” She cried, furious.  “It is you who would have me send men to slaughter.  Ten-thousand dead in your plan, General, and you say that it is I who waste men?”

“Five-hundred border skirmishes have been fought, my Queen,” he said, finally rising, blue eyes flashing and true fury blazing in his words and in frantic color in his cheeks.  “One-hundred men lost in each.  Fifty-thousand men you have lost, Rose, five times as many as you would have done if you’d only listened to me.”  He had stepped toward her and stood towering above her now, the energy, fury, and loss seeming to pulse from him in waves of power.

“At first I forgave your ignorance because you were nearly a child- so new to the throne and to power.  How could you know what it is to lose men in such numbers?”  His voice went soft, his eyes distant as he remembered her then- so very young, and so very beautiful.  “Then I forgave you because…” His eyes returned from their distance and saw her, and Queen Rose could see the heat behind them.

She remembered then the first time she had taken him to her bed all those months ago.  She had gone to her knees before him, as she had done to no man since her father, the King, had died.  She had taken his cock into her mouth, submitted to him as she submitted to no other, and he had called her Rose as his seed had flowed onto her tongue.  No one called her Rose, not since her mother had died.

She had taken him to her bed and he had touched her, made her see stars again and again.  Worshiped her as his Queen, his Lady, his Love.  He had filled her, made her cry out, made her weep tears of joy and abandon.

The day of her coronation, Rose had felt that she had swallowed a razor wire which each of her advisors pulled, one way and another, her people pulled one way and another, each ally, each enemy, until she had been cut to ribbons inside.

Only when her Lord General Tyler loved her did she feel whole and sound.

He lifted a hand to the apple of her cheek, his fingertips coming within a hairsbreadth of her skin, and stopped.  He dropped his hand without touching her.

“I forgave you for many things, your Highness,” he said, shaking his head.  “But no longer.  I cannot stand aside anymore.  I am leaving.”

He turned then and for the first time she could see that his shoulders were not straight, as they had always been, but tensed, as though awaiting a fatal shot through the back.

“Wait!” she called.

He stopped, but did not turn around.

Queen Rose looked around her throne room.  There were no courtiers nor petitioners, but there were servants standing, carefully ignoring the drama playing out before them.  It was as close as ever she came to being alone, but she could not stand them any longer.

“I must speak to My Lord General alone,” she said, and she was pleased, if surprised, that her voice did not shake.  “I wish you all to leave.”

A dozen sets of eyes- footmen, guards, and servants of all varieties- turned toward her in surprise.

“My Queen-” the Captain of the Guard began, but she cut him off.

“Now!  Your Queen commands!”  Her heart seemed to quail, and she could hear her voice beginning to sound hysterical.  She must get rid of every witness before she lost herself entirely.  “Go!”

They went.  In only a few moments, she was alone with Lord General Tyler, though he kept his back to her.

“Christopher,” she said, softly.  “I-“

“My Lady,” he said, and his voice was soft as well, but unlike hers, it did not shake.  “You must understand that I am decided in my mind.  I cannot remain.  Not so long as the war continues so.”

The Queen jumped on this last.  “The war!  Please, tell me what I can do!  You say that I have allowed too many to die already, so what must be done?”

He turned finally and looked at her again.  “You have only two choices, My Queen.  If you wish to see no more die at your order, allow the Daleks into your kingdom.  Surrender your land, your people, and your crown.  Bend the knee.”

“Turn Gallifrey over to Davros?” She asked, horrified.  The King of Skaro was known far and wide as Davros the Cruel.  He would crush her people beneath her boot.

“If you are no longer Queen, you need not concern yourself with the Gallifreyans,” he said, as though he were reading her mind.  “You and I could run to some far-off place.  Live honest, simple lives.  Get all we deserve.  Give all we can.  Leave the world to sort itself out for once.”

It was a pretty picture, and Queen Rose could see it clear as day before her.  A cottage in the woods, a garden where they might grow their food.  Children and chickens.  Cats and dogs.  And he would love her there, and they need never think again of palaces and intrigues.  Of war and death.

But it faded as quickly as it came, and she knew, as he knew, that it was only a fantasy.

“I cannot leave Gallifrey to the Daleks,” she said, voice cold and hard.  “If that is all you can offer-“

“No, My Queen.  Your other choice is the one I have given you time and again: send me.  I will lead your army against the Daleks.  I will lead Gallifrey to victory in your name.”

She finally said the words that he had known from the beginning- for it was not the cost of men that had stayed her hand all these months.

“But you could die.”

Her face was no longer that of a queen, but that of a child.  A child who was learning, for the first time, that the world is not kind.  That mothers and fathers do not live forever.  That palaces are built for protection as well as play.  That princesses must become queens.

“You must choose, Rose,” he said softly.  “You can save Gallifrey but lose me.  I cannot make the choice for you.”

She turned from him and closed her eyes, the tears boiling behind them.  For the first time since he had first entered her life, she could feel the weight of her crown on her head and thought she would collapse beneath it.

He must know what she would say.  Would have known from the moment he had come to her.  And yet he would make her say it.  Make her give the order that might take his life.

“You will go,” she said, and it was like another person was saying it.  Not Rose, a Queen.  “You will lead my men to victory against the Daleks.  You will do this in my name.  Tomorrow.”

She turned to face him then.  “Tonight you will stay with me.”

He bowed.  “As my Queen commands.”

~?~?~?~?~

It took nearly six months, and the cost was terrible, but the victory was decisive.  Gallifrey stood and Skaro surrendered.

The Queen was lauded a hero for saving her kingdom from the invading forces.  Her generals stood alongside her as she accepted surrender from Davros the Cruel.

All her generals, save one.

She was called Queen Rose, the Valiant.  Queen Rose, the Wolf.  Queen Rose, the Defender.

No one called her simply “Rose.”

She reached out to those who mourned, and gave succor to those left behind.  She made sure that they were fed, clothed, and housed- cared for in every way that she could manage.

No one saw that she mourned as well.

Banquets, feasts, and revels were held to celebrate the victory and honor the valiant soldiers, generals, and the Queen.  Kings and Dukes of neighboring kingdoms sent their handsome sons as emissaries to the court of the brave young Queen.

She had eyes for none of them.

A year to the day after the final battle against the Daleks of Skaro, and the Queen with the sad eyes stood like a beneficent goddess over the memorial revels when a man arrived at the gates of the castle.

He was not dressed in the finery of a general of the Queen of Gallifrey, but in cotton and sacking.  The lines about his mouth were deeper, his eyes colder.  His was a face that had forgotten how to smile.

When she saw him there, across the courtyard, she knew him.  She would have known him from a thousand men, no matter how he had changed.

The revels continued- dancing, and music, and exhibitions of valor- but as the Queen’s eyes met those of her beloved Soldier, all other concerns faded away for he was alive and he had returned to her side at last.

He crossed to her and dropped to his knees at her feet, eyes tender and loving as they looked up at his Queen.  She laid her hands atop his head, on the short, soft hair there and, tears running down her face at the sight of him, drew him to her, pressing him against her belly as they both wept for all that had been lost, and all that was again found and possible.


End file.
